


The Space Between

by yuutsuhime



Series: The Space Between [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Animal Death, Anxiety, Braided Narrative, Character Study, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kissing, Leonie Pinelli Dies, Slice of Life, Slow Dancing, Trauma, 間
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-18 01:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21519730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuutsuhime/pseuds/yuutsuhime
Summary: As a student, Dorothea teaches Bernadetta how to dance. After the war, Bernadetta isolates herself after witnessing the violent death of a former classmate. Two halves of the same story, interleaved, both ending in Dorothea's arms.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Bernadetta von Varley
Series: The Space Between [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1615993
Comments: 5
Kudos: 58





	The Space Between

**Author's Note:**

> **Enable creator skin** because I did some really weird formatting in chapter 7.
> 
> Chapters are numbered in chronological order. Chapters 5,6,7,8,9 are interleaved with 1,2,3,4.
> 
> A friend of mine died a month ago. This story gets really real about death, and it's from an incredibly raw place. Please be mindful of the tags.

### 5.

Bernadetta has not killed before. Bernadetta shoots arrows at people but Bernadetta doesn't _kill_ people — _war_ kills, and Edelgard is the war. Bernadetta is just the sniper, and the war is just a thing that's inside everyone, like water, or blood. So maybe the war can be washed away, swallowed, tied to a chair and made to sit alone, locked in a room, denied.

Bernadetta has not killed before but she watches Leonie's horse spill its intestines onto the cobblestone and tangle itself and thrash and die. It was probably Edelgard's axe that cut the horse's stomach, but Bernadetta needs to reach into her quiver for another arrow. She must have shot the one she was holding. Leonie's horse dies on the ground, but Bernadetta is confused and maybe the horse is Leonie and Bernadetta's arrow is the axe and Bernadetta locks the door to her room because the intestines won't spill out if her door is locked tight enough.

Bernadetta does not cry. She does not have a heart.

Leonie dies in the evening.

### 1.

Bernadetta cannot dance, but Byleth asks through the locked door for Bernadetta to audition anyway. Bernadetta says no because she cannot dance, but she follows Byleth's subsequent invitation to the dining hall anyways.

"She's a person. She needs to eat, too," Byleth says to Dorothea, who sits across from Bernadetta.

"Not really," Bernadetta says. She takes a bite of fish, as if the meal is poisoned; swallows anyway because she should.

Byleth asks about Bernadetta's goals and Bernadetta says "I don't know," and then decides to eat the rest of the fish because it's good and she was actually hungry. Dorothea wants to be certified as a dancer, and now Bernadetta wants to watch Dorothea dance, too. Bernadetta does not have a body, but she might as well watch other people do things she can't. Dorothea is a marriageable woman — one with promise, who is wanted, with a dead father and all the other things Bernadetta isn't sure she should wish for.

Bernadetta's father once tried to teach Bernadetta to dance. He moved her arms and legs around like one of those wood figures artists use to simulate human pose, and Bernadetta fell down because her father's hand was on Bernadetta's hip and maybe Bernadetta didn't like that.

"Stand up," he said.

Bernadetta watches her father's eyes, and knows that he would rather kill Bernadetta and replace her with an actual daughter — the _real_ Bernadetta — one with goals and ambitions and the ability to _try_ to become anything beyond a recluse.

"I can't," Bernadetta says.

After the meal, Byleth goes back out to fish and Dorothea returns to her dorm room. Bernadetta mumbles a goodbye when she leaves the table and spends the walk home trying to avoid both of them, who are coincidentally walking in the same direction. In her room, Bernadetta does the first few steps of a waltz and stops when she sees herself in the mirror, alone. She doesn't know who she was pretending to dance with.

### 6.

Bernadetta has a cut on her arm. She can't remember when Leonie shot her or even if Leonie used a bow. She doesn't even know Leonie's last name, or what she liked, or which foods Byleth figured out were her favorite, or who she danced with at the ball.

Bernadetta has a cut on her arm and she can't go to the infirmary because Professor Manuela will ask about all the other cuts on Bernadetta's arms that aren't important anymore. Bernadetta doesn't want to talk about how she found Petra's hunting dagger on the ground five years ago and still hasn't returned it. Petra would be angry. So would Dorothea, who probably knows Petra better than she knows Bernadetta.

Bernadetta cries about Leonie's horse. She cries about looks of confusion and undeserved pain and lakes of blood and how Dorothea looked on the animal's death and said "more killing" to nobody in particular before she threw up on the side of a tavern. Dorothea didn't know who Leonie's horse was, but Bernadetta was sure Leonie's horse had lived in the stable at Garreg Mach, and so Bernadetta leaves her room. Lies on the floor of the emptiest stable she could find and pretends to talk to dead animals.

Bernadetta's father taught Bernadetta how to ride a horse. After practice, Bernadetta would lie on the floor of the stable at the house of Varley and rest her head against her horse's mane; sleep in the hay, lock the stable door from the inside so they didn't have to leave.

"You'll make friends with an animal, but with people, you won't even try," her father told her.

Bernadetta hasn't curled up alone in a stable for eight years. Hay pricks into her skin, and the night is cold; she is not supposed to be here. She missed this.

### 2.

Bernadetta cannot be friends with Dorothea, because a noble isn't supposed to learn to dance from a commoner, much less hold the hand of a commoner, speak with a commoner, or kiss a commoner.

"We had this exchange when you made me sell that horse," Bernadetta's father says. "A beast is not a noble. A commoner is not a noble. You do not associate with those who are beneath you, lest you become like them. You are to marry a noble man of noble birth."

"I'm sorry," Bernadetta says.

"I don't think you're sorry," Bernadetta's father says. He's right.

On the weekend, Byleth takes the class into the field to train with the Knights of Seiros in a mock invasion. Bernadetta fires arrows with blunt cloth instead of arrowheads, and as the knights play dead in the road below their rooftop, Bernadetta turns to Dorothea and apologizes.

"What for?" Dorothea asks, sending several sparks of lightning into the dirt surrounding a knight, who crumples to the ground in an exaggerated stage death.

"I really am sorry!" Bernadetta says.

"I know, Bern. I just don't know for what. You're sorry for a lot of things you shouldn't be."

Bernadetta is confused. "I'm sorry for that?"

An fake arrow glances off Bernadetta's head.

"I think you're dead," Dorothea says.

"Sorry."

"I'll come talk to you after the battle," Dorothea says, winking. "I'll get your revenge."

"Thanks," Bernadetta says, deadpan. She rolls over to look up at the sky, thinks about how easy it is to breathe.

### 7.

Bernadetta locks her door.

| 

Dorothea pauses outside of Bernadetta's room. Knocks hesitantly. "Bern? Are you there?"

Dorothea waits.

"Bern, I haven't seen you for a week," Dorothea says. She leans her forehead against Bernadetta's door. "I guess I'm just really afraid? I mean I trust you to take care of yourself and everything, but I just feel like you're shutting everyone out. And, I really don't want to be shut out?"

Dorothea sighs. Brings out her flask of whiskey and takes a drink. Alcohol might be a habit now, but Dorothea habitually doesn't think about it, and that's a sort of compromise, right?

"I don't know, Bernie. I know you probably need time, but I also know you probably think everyone hates you because of what happened. And... It's not your fault, Bernie."  
  
---|---  
  
"I'm sorry," Bernadetta whispers.

| 

It doesn't matter if Bernadetta is actually behind the door or not. Dorothea is choking, falling apart.

"It's a war. I know it's a war. And I know who the war is against. I just really want to believe the war is the monster instead of the people. Like you and me. We're just swept up in everything and we can't do anything because we're too small, right? Because nobody ever told us how to survive the right way?"

Dorothea looks out over the ruins of the monastery and remembers how they were kids, once. How long five years actually are. How maybe one day, she could have gone down to the dining hall and seen Leonie and chosen not to talk to her, because Leonie wasn't dead, and she wasn't _going_ to be dead.

"I know there's things nobody in the world can undo," Dorothea says. "Not even our professor. Not even me. I guess... I know it's selfish, but I just... I really want you to come back? I know we can't fix anything but you're still here, Bern. You're alive. And I fucking care. Don't go."  
  
Bernadetta leans her body against her door. Holds herself and imagines her hands belong to Dorothea.

| 

"I'm sorry, Bern," Dorothea says. Catches her words on her tongue, and then remembers how often she forgets to tell people things before they die.

"I love you, Bern," Dorothea says. "Come back."  
  
"I love you, too," says Bernadetta. A whisper. Something to hold on to.

| 

Dorothea sits in the quiet. Listens. Pretends.  
  
### 3.

"Do you dance?" Dorothea asks.

Bernadetta is sitting in a corner of the great hall, thinking about her father. Byleth forced her to attend the ball, obviously.

"No," Bernadetta says. "There's too many people here. I'm already making the Professor sad because they want me to have a good time, and I'm not having a good time. But if I try to dance everyone is going to mock me, and then I'll be kicked out of the house and Hubert will kill me."

Dorothea squats down on the floor. "Bernie. Remember what I told you about your father?"

"That you'd beat him up?"

Dorothea smirks and flexes her bicep exaggeratedly. "Yeah. That's not just about him, you know. I'll beat up _anyone_ who tries to hurt you."

Bernadetta glances at the crowd of dancers. "That's a lot of people," she says, her voice wavering.

"I'll kill them all," Dorothea says. She's trying to make her voice scary but she just sounds like she has a sore throat. "I'll let you think, but in the meantime, I'm about to try to steal a dance from Edelgard."

"Edelgard is scary. I don't know why you like her," Bernadetta says.

"I like a lot of people," Dorothea shrugs, and returns to the fray. "You know where to find me!"

### 8.

Bernadetta finds Dorothea in the dining hall. Dorothea has bags under her eyes, and can't seem to support her head without bracing her arm against the table. Hangover, probably, although Bernadetta still isn't certain if she knows Dorothea 'well' or just 'a little'.

"How are you doing?" Dorothea asks.

"I don't know," Bernadetta says. It's the truth until the food on Bernadetta's plate turns into Leonie's horse's intestines, but she puts it in her mouth anyway, swallows, hides the carnage inside her.

"I'm glad to see you," Dorothea says, and Bernadetta hugs her then, suddenly. Dorothea doesn't know where to put her hands, and her used fork is getting sauce on the back of Bernadetta's top. Bernadetta needs to take a bath; the grime from the battle two weeks ago is still caked on the back of her neck and under her fingernails. The hug is unpleasant and means everything.

"Do you hate me?" Bernadetta says.

"No."

"But everyone else does," Bernadetta says, and continues in a moment of boldness: "So maybe you're wrong."

"Nobody _hates_ you, Bernie."

"But nobody else talks to me. Maybe it would be better if I died instead of —"

"Bern... You locked yourself in your room for two weeks. Byleth left food outside your door every day. Hubert wears your flower all the time because he doesn't know when he'll see you again."

"It's just my fault, then. I'm wrong, and it's my fault for going crazy."

"War is crazy," Dorothea says. She laughs, because she doesn't know what else to do. "But we're still here. You're here."

### 4.

"You're here!" Dorothea exclaims, smiling in genuine surprise.

"On my own," Bernadetta says, shrugging.

Dorothea leans back against the stone walls, smiling to herself. "Finally found a way to ask you out without triggering your anxiety."

Bernadetta is going to die, so she has to pick her last words carefully. "What?"

"You came all the way to the Goddess Tower for a reason, right? That's going to a new place, alone. You came and talked to me. That's choosing to talk to someone in public."

"So — so what if I did want to? See you, I mean."

"Then we'd be here together, on the night of the ball."

"Oh," says Bernadetta. "What if you weren't here?"

"I _am_ here."

"Oh," Bernadetta mumbles.

"So I guess the what-ifs don't really matter. But we don't have to do anything you don't want to," Dorothea says. "You're in control."

"I'm in control," Bernadetta repeats, and Dorothea nods again. Looks out over the specks of dancers in the distance.

"Will you teach me to dance?" Bernadetta says. It's a question but she says it like an apology.

"I would love to," Dorothea says. "But am I allowed to touch?"

"Yes," Bernadetta mumbles.

"What?"

"Yes."

"Then follow my lead," Dorothea says. Bernadetta startles when Dorothea's hand touches the small of Bernadetta's back. Dorothea exhales and Bernadetta feels it on her neck, like an embrace, and they are holding hands now, stepping in tune to a song Dorothea can only imagine, but Bernadetta can hear anyway.

The dance is hesitant and tender and filled with instructions that Bernadetta doesn't do the right way, but Dorothea doesn't give up, she just accepts. Bernadetta steps on Dorothea's foot and Dorothea laughs, and maybe Bernadetta laughs too.

And when Bernadetta thinks of her father, she thinks about opposites. How he bade her dance only with a noble man, and here Bernadetta is, leaning her head into the shoulder of a common woman because she _wants to_ and she _can_. How Bernadetta is bad at dancing and good at being alone and yet, she is still smiling. How Dorothea is uncommon, and Bernadetta is ignoble; how you aren't supposed to kiss until the dance is over, and yet Bernadetta does anyway, just to break another rule. Just to spite the man who was supposed to love her, and didn't. Just to touch the woman she wasn't supposed to fall for, and did.

### 9.

In the dead of night, Bernadetta slinks out to the graveyard with a bouquet and learns Leonie's last name from her headstone. It's not how she's supposed to be buried. Here, in occupied territory, by the army that took her body when her own friends retreated.

Manuela isn't sure if Leonie died because of an arrow Bernadetta shot, or Edelgard's axe, or from her horse falling and crushing her. The truth is that she died with an arrow in her chest, disemboweled, with a collapsed ribcage. The truth is that she died on the floor of a medical tent two hours after the retreat. The truth is that she died.

Bernadetta has a habit of crying over horses instead of people. When Bernadetta's father sold her horse, Bernadetta cried for the horse but not for the fifteen-year old girl the horse left behind. She doesn't cry for Leonie until two weeks after the night in the stables, at the grave and on Dorothea's shoulder and in her room. 

Bernadetta apologizes for things she can't change and Dorothea makes her take it back. Presses their foreheads together. Bernadetta's hair is wet from the bathwater and it soaks into her pillow.

"Are you going back to your room?" Bernadetta asks.

"Would you like me to?"

"I think I want you here," Bernadetta says.

Dorothea smiles. "I want to be here, too."

Bernadetta closes her eyes. Leans into Dorothea like sleep is a dance. She thinks about hearts, fear, the length of five years, and all the things she could have said in between and didn't. She thinks about all the tomorrows Leonie can't live, and how she will live them, and she will keep living them. How she will leave her door unlocked. How she will mean to.

**Author's Note:**

> So I did my usual number symbolism here... Nine chapters because arcana 9 is the hermit (Bernadetta). The time skip occurs after chapter 4 (superstitious death number).
> 
> Let me know how you felt about my bizarre two-column chapter (I'm not taking it too seriously, it just felt like it would be really fucked up if I did that, so I did).


End file.
